


Sleeping Beauty

by GalacticNerd



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Cancer, Death, Doctor John Watson, Doctor/Patient, Gay, Hospitals, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, Love, M/M, Sherlock Is Not Okay, Sleeping Together, dying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13285377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticNerd/pseuds/GalacticNerd
Summary: John Watson has been working at the hospital for several years and, as a well established doctor, he knows his boundaries and how to remain sympathetic but unattached. However, all his personal walls go flying out the window when he does the cancer ward round and discovers the most beautiful human being he has ever laid eyes on. Sherlock Holmes has been unconscious for four weeks, showing no signs of waking up and, to John, is a real sleeping beauty. John quickly becomes obsessed with Mr Holmes and, although he knows how dangerous it is, vows to help the patient all he can and save him from the hovering jaws of cancer riddled death.





	1. John Is Really Tired

John Watson was tired. And not just “oh, I’m tired” tired, but “I might pass out right this second” tired. He could categorically list exactly why he was this exhausted and the reasons went like this:

Two nights ago, there had been a nasty accident involving a double decker bus, three cars and fourteen pedestrians in Times Square, thus filling up the emergency room swiftly and requiring the services of any and every free doctor or nurse. Mending all the broken bones, lacerated flesh and the likes had taken until the early hours of the morning by which time everyone involved was running on black coffee and jelly beans. 

Then, only an hour or so after the last patient had been seen to, there had been another vehicle accident, this time in Trafalgar Square (there seemed to be a theme going on here, John thought morbidly) which, again, filled the emergency room almost to maximum capacity. John had chugged down another black coffee and a handful of purple jelly beans before donning a pair of latex gloves and seeing to the never-ending ocean of sobbing patients. He’d put the final stitches into a twenty-two-year-old guys thigh and checked the emergency room which, finally, was empty. 

Sighing deeply with weariness, he’d been about to slip out of his doctor’s coat and sling his rain jacket over his shoulders when Lestrade, the hospital director, had come down personally to ask him to oversee some trainees undertaking the removal of internal stitches. Apparently, John was a master at this sort of thing and, considering that he’d been asked by the director himself, he agreed and soon found himself trying to fix the utter mess the trainees had made. Not only had they cut the stitches in the wrong place, they’d also somehow nicked the edge of a lung which resulted in internal bleeding which John then had to patch up, thus keeping the patient in hospital for an extra week. Which did not make their day at all.

This then meant that John had to sit in a long and arduous meeting with the pompous pricks who oversaw all the legal matters and explain that while he himself was a very competent doctor, the trainees were not and that he hadn’t even come up with this idea in the first place. He was served with a notice which pretty much banned him from overseeing trainees (this didn’t bother him too much; he found them to be little smartarses and highly irritating). 

By this time, it was well past lunch time and John shuffled to the staff room to gulp down a rather floppy sandwich when he got called down to the morgue to identify some interesting stab wounds. He shoveled down his sandwich on the way and then had to attempt to make conversation with Molly Hooper who was head of this department and who wasn’t the best at casual conversation that didn’t involve bodies. 

Once that was done, John thought he might get a reprieve, but his pager beeped to say that he needed to do the afternoon children’s ward shift which he then had to use all his powers to appear light and cheerful. Normally, he loved this shift; the kids were generally happy and co-operative but this time it was very difficult indeed. This took nearly all afternoon as there was an issue with a seven-year-old girl’s oxygen machine that had to be sorted out and, given that there was no-one else on duty (there were burn victims in the emergency room), he had to apply his very limited mechanical skills to fix the problem. 

Once he’d managed to fix the tank, he sneaked off to the staff room and managed to eat some pasta and then slumped at the table, passing out instantly. However, he was only asleep for around ten minutes because someone was tapping him on the shoulder and demanding that he get down to the emergency room to do his usual shift. So, groaning and rubbing his chin, John dragged his feet down to the emergency room and spent the next several hours working his shift of seeing to everyone who came in via the ER doors. 

It was well into the night before John next had a break and he felt close to literally flipping out. He found himself leaning on the wall of a corridor he couldn’t quite remember walking into. His eyes were so, so heavy and he was sliding, utterly spent, to the floor. At that moment, all the alarms began to toll, lights flashing and the disembodied voice that belonged to the fire department instructed John to evacuate this wing immediately. Jolted awake, John leaped to his feet and joined the throng of doctors rushing to various wards to evacuate patients. It didn’t take long as there were certain doors that could close and become fireproof and certain ways of removing patients to different parts of the hospital with minimal difficulty. John then had to wait while the fire brigade arrived to put out the fire, by which time several parts of that wing had been destroyed. This meant that there had to be a shuffle around of patients and rooms had to change. John worked well into the very early morning and with each step and each movement, he felt his limbs grow heavier and heavier and his reactions get slower and slower. Some distant part of his mind told him that he shouldn’t be working like this and that he’d never be able to do any decent job at the moment, but he couldn’t very well walk out on an operation like this. Finally, just as the new day was dawning, it was done. Everyone was settled in, a young nurse was looking after the emergency room and John stood, shaking slightly, by the door that lead to the X-Ray rooms. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing but it hit him, all of a sudden, that he could do no more. He was spent. There wasn’t an ounce of energy left in him. He sagged, using the wall as support and he registered the fact that his heart was beating much too fast. 

“Watson?”

No, no more, he begged silently, hoisting himself upwards once more so he could face Lestrade who was striding towards him with a concerned look on his friendly features. 

“Sir?” John said, trying not to slur his words. Though he was completely exhausted, his terrible streak of pride did not allow him to do the sensible thing and say that he had to go home before he passed out right this second. 

“How many hours straight have you been working, Watson?” Lestrade asked, reaching out a hand to support John who was listing seriously to one side. John had to think hard, sifting through the muddied waters of his mind to do the math. 

“Uh,” John hesitated. Then he blinked twice, figuring it out. “I’d say close to 48 hours.”

Lestrade was silent for a moment, his eyes widening. “Watson, you are in no fit state to continue working. You need to go home, get some sleep and I don’t want to see you back here until Thursday. You understand?”

“Yes, sir,” John mumbled and Lestrade shook his head in disbelief. As John shuffled away, he could hear Lestrade repeating “48 hours” under his breath, voice coloured with amazement and slight dismay. John couldn’t recall quite how he got home to his little flat on the outskirts of central London. He had a vague recollection of a bumpy bus ride, an interchange and fumbling for his card to pay the fare. There was the faint memory of unlocking his door, staggering inside and locking the door again and then of toppling onto the couch, eyes slamming shut. At some point, he woke up enough to move to his bedroom, strip to his boxers and slip between the sheets. He didn’t wake up for another very long while.

He dreamed of absolutely nothing. His brain was so exhausted, it didn’t even have the energy to make up a dream and John was glad of that. He woke up feeling a little disorientated but, in general, quite a lot better. It took him a moment to figure out why he had woken up. Then his stomach rumbled loudly, answering the unspoken question. Shaking his head slightly, John sleepily climbed out of bed, fixed himself some cereal, consumed it and crawled back into bed. His eyes slid closed once more and this time, he dreamed of the beach.

He used to go there when he was a little boy, and he dreamed of the ocean silently lapping the shore while gulls swooped above him. He saw his own feet leaving footprints in the pebbly sand while his arms were stretched out like wings, helping him glide through the muggy summer air. And then, as he suddenly tripped over a rock that jutted from the shore like a miniature mountain, John awoke with a start. 

There was a strange taste in his mouth and his tongue felt like lead. But his mind was clear, and he felt like the old John again. Rolling out of bed, he slung his dressing gown on and checked the time on his wrist watch. It was Thursday morning, around 6am and he nodded with satisfaction. He’d slept the whole of Wednesday away. John made toast for breakfast and ate it leisurely, knowing that he didn’t need to go to work until around 10am. So, having a large portion of the morning to himself, he ran a bath, made tea and soaked in the silky, warm water for nearly an hour, drinking tea and enjoying the quiet bliss. Afterwards, he dressed himself and checked the time out of habit. Other people, he assumed, would go out and meet friends or something, when they discovered they had most of the morning off work. However, the slightly sad truth was that John Watson was a lonely man. He lived for his work and nothing else. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to the pub for a drink or taken someone out to coffee. With a slightly resigned sigh, he figured he’d just go to work early. So he got himself ready and headed out to the bus stop.


	2. Infatuation With Mr Holmes

There were several crying children on the bus, three seats in front of him, and he wished their mother would shush them. They were far too old to be sobbing about the deficit of sugary drinks in their mother’s handbag at any rate and (the doctor in John frowned disapprovingly), sugary drinks really shouldn't have been an option with their young teeth. It would only lead to rot and decay and several trips to the dentist as well as to the doctor for something to settle stomachs dealing with too much acid.

 

John was glad to get off the bus as soon as he could, finally being free of the incessant whinging, the squabbling couple in the back and the surly bus driver who grouched at everyone who didn't pay with a card and made him rummage around in his tin for change. As John exited the bus, he eyed the driver discretely and was struck by the caterpillar-like eyebrows; oversized bushy things which wriggled about grumpily. Nearly giggling, he managed to get off the bus without tripping over the step and set his feet down on the familiar path to the hospital.

 

John hoisted his bag a little higher on his shoulder as he walked through the doors to the hospital. Sally, the main receptionist, waved a little at him and he smiled briefly. Although Sally was prickly at the best of times, they both kept up appearances for the benefit of everyone else. He suspected she was sour about never quite making it into her desired profession of a nurse. After stowing his bag in one of the lockers in the staff room, he slung his doctor's coat over his shoulders and checked the register which hung from a warped nail driven into the chipped plaster. Someone needed to head down to the cancer ward sometime before lunch to do the usual check-up shift. Make sure the patients were still alive and well. He figured that now was a perfectly good time. So, he bundled up all the clip-boards pertaining to the patients and tucked them under his arms.

 

As his shoes squeaked him down the linoleum corridor, he wondered which interesting characters he’d meet today. The last time he’d done the shift, he’d met a cranky old man who kept demanding to know when he’d kick the bucket (John couldn't help but mutter, under his breath, that the time couldn't come soon enough) and a cheerful but heart breaking little girl. Why was she heart breaking? She was only four years old and struggling to breathe, each day her lungs giving up a little bit more. Perpetually happy, she always smiled for John, even when she couldn't catch her breath at all.

 

John eased the door to the cancer ward open and slipped through, suddenly wanting to keep his footsteps quiet. He wasn’t quite sure why; perhaps he was loath to disturb the strange quiet that infected this part of the hospital. The quiet movement of the dying. The first ward he entered contained three young kids, all with various forms of leukemia, all part of the slowly rotating cast of the ill. They were all in good spirits, which pleased John, their vitals checked out and one of the girls offered him a chocolate that had been left by an aunt during a morning visit. Sucking the peppermint chocolate, he fished a loose coin from his pocket and performed a quick sleight of hand to the delight of the kids. He was fairly rubbish at magic tricks, but this was one that he could complete swiftly to entertain young children. He waved happily to them and left the ward, heading over to the ward across the corridor. This one was home to a single man, somewhere in his sixties with a lavishly decorated bedside table. He was sleeping when John checked his vitals, so John was glad that they all checked out. There was no need to press buttons and make loud sounds. He slipped out without disturbing the snoozing. John visited seven more wards, each with varying moods but all with positive vitals.

 

As he worked his way to the bottom of his clipboards, he pondered the logistics of cancer. Why did it just have to go and ruin the lives of perfectly happy human beings? A lot of the time, he hated cancer with a vengeance. A few years ago, he’d met a young woman with a late stage of blood cancer. She was terminal but somehow kept her humour until she was very close to death. He’d been one of the only doctors she liked, and he eased her pain. To see her fade away had hit John in a different place that other patients. He’d become attached to her which was dangerous for a doctor dealing with death daily. After that, he spent the next week in a strange reverie, doing his work but never quite feeling it properly. Lestrade had had a chat with him about attachment issues, telling him that sympathy was good but emotional attachment was bad for his mental health. From then on, he’d managed to keep a safe distance. That was why he usually stayed away from the cancer ward. But he figured he’d have to get over himself at some point and now, he felt fine, heading into one of the last wards on his shift. He shouldered the door open and stepped into the ward. 

 

Instantly, he was struck by how little decoration there was on the walls. The other wards had posters, paintings, cards, balloons and flowers to brighten the dull walls and depressing vibe of illness. But this one, this was bore no posters, zero paintings, there were no cards with heartfelt letters, no balloons to liven the mood and no flowers wilting in a vase. In fact, at first glance, the ward looked completely empty and for a second, John wondered if he’d got the wrong door. But when he looked a second time, he realized that the bed contained a very thin patient. John moved closer, intrigued, his clip-board forgotten. He ran his eyes over the surprisingly un-rumpled covers and up to the face. Black curls were splayed out over the crisp white pillow, contrasting starkly. The cheekbones were hollow, and the lips were parted slightly. John could see the covers rising and falling with the breaths. He went back to examining the face and as he stared at each contour and curve and the incredibly pale flesh, he realized he was utterly entranced. 

 

“Snap out of it,” he muttered to himself as it hit him that he’d been standing there, opened mouthed like a gaping fish, for at least ten minutes. He shook his head a little and shifted to the foot of the bed to check the clipboard which had the information from the last check-up. John checked the name as well. It was an unusual one, he thought, re reading it several times. 

 

Sherlock Holmes (WS).

 

He skipped to the next line where it said that the patient was unconscious and not expected to awaken any time soon. Apparently, some unknown person was paying to keep Mr Holmes in the ward and on the expensive support he required. This man just got more and more fascinating with every minute. John checked all the vitals which were fine, apart from the fact that Mr Holmes had been unconscious for four weeks and there was no difference in his brain activity. But, John frowned at the brain activity stats, it was unusually high for someone unconscious. In fact, they were higher than most conscious people! John took a step back and wondered who on earth this man was. He flicked through the papers on Mr Holmes’s clipboard and cocked his head to one side. There was no personal information except his vitals, age and measurements. No-one to call if he died. No address to send him home to if he woke up. Nothing. Curiosity was beginning to burn a hole in John and he thought it best to move on before he accidentally spent all day in the ward. He swiftly checked the vitals, ticked off the clipboard and hurried out of the ward. At the very last moment, he glanced back and caught sight of the pale skin and black hair, popping from the pillow. 

 

“Get a grip, Watson,” John snapped at himself, closing the door with strange finality behind him. “You do not need to be mooning over a patient. That’s just wrong. Sick and wrong.”

 

He finished his shift in a daze, ticking everyone off and doing everything like he normally would. But the man, Sherlock Holmes, was stuck in his mind. He found himself wondering what colour Mr Holmes’s eyes were. Mentally slapping himself, John dumped the clipboards at reception and headed to the staff-room where Molly Hooper from the mortuary was eating noodles and reading some romance novel at the same time, somehow managing not to drop noodles on the pink paperback, and a young man nurse was microwaving soup, staring at the revolving bowl with blank detachment. John padded to the cupboard and fetched a mug. He made coffee, fetched his lunch from his bag and sat at the table where he proceeded to sip his drink and eat his pasta which seemed strangely tasteless. He was too busy thinking about the rather beautiful man sleeping in ward 221 to notice who walked in and out of the staff room. 

 

“Oi, Watson!”

 

John whipped his head up in surprise and nearly spilled his coffee. Lestrade stood by his shoulder with an odd expression on his face and his hair ruffled slightly.

 

“Uh, hi?” John stuttered, wiping coffee from his top lip and trying to pull himself together.

 

“Two things,” Lestrade said without mincing any words. “One, how are you feeling? And two, what took so long in the cancer ward?”

 

John blinked. “I’m good now, thanks. Uh…I had to do a double check on a patient, just to make sure.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Er, Mr Holmes from 221,” John answered. Thankfully, Lestrade seemed satisfied and clapped John on the shoulder before leaving, silence echoing in his wake. Molly Hooper had put her book down and stopped awkwardly slurping noodles to stare at John, mouth open in a manner that would make a goldfish proud. The young man nurse was holding his soup with both hands, not seeming to notice that it was burning hot. Finally, he broke the silence.

 

“How come Doctor Lestrade talks directly to you?”

 

John was baffled. That was what this silence was all about? Not because they thought he was some creeper staring at patients in the cancer ward? He shrugged. “We’ve got good banter.”

 

It wasn’t exactly a lie, he thought as the room lapsed back into silence again. He finished his lunch and coffee before flattening down his coat and striding from the staff room, feeling a bit godly. Clearly, the young nurse thought he was a bit of a hot shot and he wasn’t about to denounce that. For the rest of the day, John scurried around doing all the jobs that needed doing and not once did Mr Holmes leave his mind. There were so many questions he wanted answering, so many answers he needed. As he rumbled home on the bus, he stared, unseeing, out the window. Really, he was seeing Mr Holmes. The way his black hair contrasted with his pale face and white pillow. His parted lips. His-

 

“Oh, for god sake!” John muttered, drawing the attention of an elderly woman across the aisle. How on earth was he so incredibly infatuated by someone he’d not even properly met? This was getting out of hand. John needed something to distract him, something very distracting indeed. The bus pulled to a halt at his usual bus stop, but instead of getting off, John remained in his seat, determined to rid his mind of Mr Holmes. He pulled his phone from his pocket and clumsily texted his old friend, Mike Stamford.

 

John: You free tonight?

 

A couple of minutes later as the bus bounced down a one-way lane riddled with potholes and muddy water, his phone pinged. 

 

Mike: I’ve been free for six years.

 

John: Great. Meet me at that old pub we used to go to?

 

Mike: You? Me? A pub? Are you quite alright, John?

 

John: …

 

Mike: I’ll see you there.

 

Sighing but also smiling slightly, John tucked his phone away and tried to think of something other than the patient in ward 221. So he thought about Mike and how they’d been to training together and how they’d been outcasts in the usual manner that hard workers like themselves are. And he wondered if Mr Holmes had gone to a university and-

 

“Jesus John,” he hissed under his breath, pinching his thigh. What the hell was going on? He wasn’t just curious or anything anymore. He was obsessed! The bus screeched to a halt just up the road from the pub and John leaped off, glad to be free of the sweaty air and hoping he might just be able to escape his creeper style thoughts. His feet slapped the pavement as he walked briskly to the pub and he’d never been more glad to throw open the door in his life. Mike was already there and John marched straight up to him.

 

“I want to get drunk,” he announced with preamble, planting his hands on his hips in an attempt to seem like he was totally in control of his thoughts and actions.

 

“Sorry, what?” Mike said, caught a little off guard. John never got drunk. He never drank. “John, what’s going on?”

 

John shook his head. “Nothing, I just need to get drunk. Mike, get me drunk.”

 

“Slow down, John, old chap,” Mike placed a hand on John’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “Before you get drunk, tell me what’s going on.”


End file.
